That Triathlon Life Podcast - TTL X On, IM 70.3 Oceanside Triathlon LIVE podcast featuring Ironman world champion Chelsea Sodaro

Episode Date: March 31, 2023

Our first ever live podcast! Thank you so much to On for partnering with us to put on this incredible event. We had the honor to have our friend Chelsea Sodaro here with us talking about triathlon, racing IM 70.3 Oceanside, and answering your questions live in front of an audience. To submit your own questions, help support the podcast, and check out our TTL gear, head over to http://www.thattriathlonlife.com

It's unnecessary. You don't have to do that. That's fine. That's fine. Hello everyone. Welcome to that triathlon life podcast. I'm Eric Loggersstrom. I'm Paula Finley. I'm Nick Goldston. And I'm Chelsea Sadar. Something is a little different here. This is a little different than what we normally do. This is like a peek behind the scenes of what we do every week before we release it online. But we usually do it very casually and then Nick edits it so much to make it sound good. So this time there's no editing happening. You're hearing it raw. We might make it. mistakes, but we are so thrilled to have Chelsea here with us, a good friend of ours, and the Ironman

World Champion. So you guys are not meeting for the first time right now. Can you tell me a little bit? Because I don't actually know the full story. How long have you guys known each other and how did that go? I guess I can sort of kick it off, but we actually all met each other down here in the San Diego area when Chelsea got started in triathlon a bit. she came to train with our coach, Paulo Sousa, and we were in Carlsbad, swim in an Algonorte pool,

and we actually all lived together for, I don't know, was that like a week or two weeks? Well, I think it goes back a little farther, Eric, because I joined the triathlon squad when you guys were based out of Poway. Oh, shit. We were in Poway for a year, and then we were actually staying at this

Airbnb and Oceanside, kind of to ride out the end of the season. And Eric and I had become, like, pretty fast friends, and we're sitting on the porch. I'm like, Eric, how's it going? And he's like, well, there's this girl. How could I forget this?

Wow. Did you plan this? Did you tell her to say this? Is that what's happening here? This was a long time ago. He goes, there's this girl. I think I really like her. We're talking all the time.

Wow, this is going a different direction than I thought. This is unprecedented. I hope I was the girl. Was that a girl? Well, I actually then moved to California to be around Eric. I switched coaches, partly because of Eric, and got to train with Chelsea. So we were all a little training squad training for ITU at the time. I was sort of dipping my toes in 70.3.

Chelsea hadn't done a 70.3 yet. You were still committed to the World Cup circuit. So, yeah, I think even Steve was the thus. in the apartment packing up Chelsea's husband and yeah those were good memories but a very different time a very different time nice yeah so that's a little background I would like to say thank you so much to on and communal coffee for putting this on this is crazy we've never done something like this is something that Eric and Ball and I have talked about and Eric just like dreams about this every night like the community the TTL community how to make this thing grow and everyone feel like we're all connected

and we know it a little bit from social media and online, but to see real bodies in a room like this is crazy. It's very surreal. So thank you all for coming. This is amazing. Super special. How'd everyone like the on shoes that they wore, the Cloud Surfer. Yeah.

Yeah, those are great. Thank you to Hannah, Maria, everyone that made that happen. That was really fun. That was really cool. Also, we have, if you didn't tell already, there's food in the back, and it's F-R-E-E, so you can eat. as much of it as you want. And we also have,

Maria has been passing out posters. Do we still have more, Maria? Yes. Yep, so we'll have more. And Penn's great. So we'll have more after the recording as well. And we have hats. TTR, we're selling hats here,

also after the recording. And one of them is this, one of them is one Eric's wearing, and then there's one more blue one. Those are all the logistics. Yes, that's it. Okay, so now we're going to start with a little game

that we usually do on the podcast. It's called This or That. This or that with TTL. Beautiful. A lot of musicians out there. I like that. Okay, so the first one, we're going to do it like this. I'm going to ask each of you guys to tell me your answer.

And then we're going to do a crowd participation piece here, too, if you guys behave. So first one, for Saturday, would you rather glassy flat or gnarly waves? Eric, you first. Double overhead. Double overhead gnarly waves. Yeah. All right. Paula?

I'm going with glassy flat. Chelsea? I'm in the middle. Oh, God. That was not one of the potential answers, Jesse. Fired. Okay, now, in the audience, give me a woo-woo if you want glassy.

Okay, okay. Now give me a woo-woo if you want double overhead. Okay, hold on the glass. You guys are safe. Triathletes will be like our pool swimming. I get it. Okay. Next, would we want windy or rainy for Saturday if you had to pick?

Eric, downpour or hurricane, not hurricane, just regular rain or regular. I think I'll go with the rain. Right. I think I might go with the rain, actually. Chelsea? I like Kona, so wind for sure. Yeah, wind for me too. I have bad rain, juju.

I can't relive. What about, okay, let's hear, for rain? Wind? Woo! It's just this front. I think the wind people would just louder. Yeah, that's right. They used to think that if you liked the wind,

you were crazy back in like the old days. Next, last one here. Okay, you're on the race course. You're feeling bad. It's clear to you and everyone around you that you're feeling bad. Would you rather someone say, you're looking great?

Or would you rather have someone just kind of like look the other way and pretend like the world exists? Like, does that encouragement help or hurt? I think I'll take, ignore my existence, please. I'll suffer and empower myself. I'll take the pretend you're doing great. Okay. I'll take the pretend you're doing great.

I don't like to be patronized. Just pretend I'm not there. Okay, what about you guys? Pretend you're doing great? Woo! Ignore me completely. I don't exist. I came up with that one. That one was funny. We were in the kitchen this morning. What could we ask? What could we ask?

Okay, so we're going to move on to questions now. We're going to try to do three questions. And then if we have time, we have to end at 5.30. If we have time, we're also going to do some audience participation questions. So if you have any things you'd like to ask, world champions and fastest people in the world, this is the place to do it. Just so everyone knows, our style of podcast is we source questions from our community. every week and I go through probably 100 emails a week and pick good ones that we want to answer on the podcast and we did the same thing with this live podcast so these aren't staged they're not pretend they're true questions we got from people that emailed into us and we thought might be applicable for Chelsea to answer as well so but we didn't even ask specifically for

questions for Chelsea we do have a couple of good ones but yeah yeah great so here's the first one if I can read okay so first there's a qualifier here I'm an age grouper mom of two toddler boys and military spouse. My training time is usually spent pushing a stroller or pulling a trailer, and I swim at a gym that has child care hours, which happens to coincide with their water aerobics class. That's too bad. My question is, when do y'all train in your trisuits? I feel a bit silly running around my neighborhood, crashing grandma's pool time or biking with a family in a full get-up, L-O-L, always feels a bit foreign on race day, and I think that's just because I'm not training enough in it. Love the pod. Thanks, Christy.

Yeah, that's a good question. We don't usually train in our tri-kits, but I could see where it might help with some comfort in just making sure it doesn't chafe, making sure it's comfortable. Do you ever train in your tri-kit, Chelsea? I don't do a whole lot of training in my tri-kit, but I do try it out before race day.

It's like one time? I mean, ideally a couple times, but at least once, especially with the wetsuit or with the swim skin. Definitely that. Taking it for a swim and figuring out how to like maybe adjust it just right so it doesn't feel weird. Yeah. But I could see how you might feel a bit goofy riding the bike around in it.

But I think it's fine. I kind of think that we're all just like dorks doing our thing. Right. For our only athlete bodies, I'm sure. But I'm going to chafe. So it's just about where am I going to chafe. So I know where to put the vibe on. Research.

Yeah. Research. Exactly. It's like, it's going to be a problem. Where is it going to be a problem? Sorry, everybody. I'm doing science. Yes.

Exactly. Exactly, exactly. Yeah, cool. And also, if you're going to wear it once, are you wearing that only in the swim? You're not going to try to run in it. You're not going to try to bike in it? I would maybe try to bike in it, like make sure I know the shami situation, make sure the fits right, like I don't have too much drag or any weird seams or something.

Yeah, I'd try and bike and run in it. You could do that on the trainer if you're self-conscious about it. And this will be your first race in your new track kit. Is that right? It will be. Have you revealed it to the world yet or we get to see it on Saturday? I think there may have been a little preview. you today on my Instagram.

Everyone go check that up. No offense to anyone else, but I'm fairly certain I will be the best dressed on set. Wow. Wow. Wow, wow, wow. You know they own an apparel brand, right? We're going to fight later. Wow.

That's great. Okay, great. Well, thank you for that question. Christy. Next question here, Chelsea. Spod talks a lot about swimming, getting a video analysis and with Paul Newsom helped you. Can you tell the listeners about the process? And also, maybe how that has translated into open water, if that's any different. Yeah, absolutely. I had a kind of rough start

to my season last year, or what I thought was rough. In retrospect, I was being way too hard on myself. But I was getting on the bike and was super tired already, basically. And Paul took a look at my stroke and said, I think you should try kicking a little bit less and increasing your cadence. in the water. And it was a really easy, quick change to make. Like, it wasn't a massive technique overhaul, but just having some cues like that and some reminders really paid off big time. And my next race after seeing him was Hamburg. And I ended up leading the swim there and having a great bike. So it was something that was, like, easy to implement. But I think, yeah, video analysis can be super useful. Was there anything that you're like, I had no idea that I did that? Like, the proprioception

it was just like, whoa, that's not how I pictured myself. No, I thought I looked pretty good in the water. I feel like every time I see myself swim on video, I'm like, that's not me. No. No, I look way better than that. Yeah, of course, of course. Yeah, I've always wondered how much that would, like, was it, like, slowed down at all? Like, did you guys go, like, frame by frame like that?

Or was it more, like, seeing it in motion that helped? Yeah, he took all sorts of, like, videos from different angles, from above the way. water from in the water so I got to see like all different aspects of my stroke and how I was like sitting on top of the water so yeah it's certainly helpful to have a visual cue like that I don't know if it's something that I would do like every week but maybe a couple times a year to check in on how things are looking and yeah it's easy like Eric said we kind of across all three sports we have an idea of like what it feels like to us and what it looks like to us but sometimes it's helpful to get some like outside eyes yeah yeah have you guys done like a proper video I mean do you

obviously you see yourself swimming, like you bring cameras in the pool all the time, but have you ever done like a more scientific version of that? And there was a coach in Portland who was pretty good with stroke stuff that I had, look at me on several occasions years back. And then our coach, Paulo, fancies himself a bit of a stroke technician, and he would give feedback and occasionally take a video, but nothing where it's like in an endless pool, like that's what we go to with a retool or something. When I'd interrupt like that, and Nick usually cuts it out.

Yeah, thanks, Paula. Great. I don't think it has to be fancy, though. I think Eric filming me underwater with a GoPro and me visually seeing it, I can make corrections myself that are quite simple. So if you have a friend who has an iPhone or a GoPro at the pool, that can be valuable. It's cheaper.

It's, you know, a lot easier than going to a swim specialist if you don't have that opportunity. But, yeah, there's lots of ways to kind of see yourself underwater. Totally. And I think after you've gotten that swim specialist, just getting a video every once in a while, just like, oh, yeah, I think I'm putting my elbow up, but I'm really not. That's good. Cool.

And then our last official question here, it's from Rachel. Wow, as the day goes on, the text feels like it gets smaller. Hi, friends. My question is, how do you recommend that I explore my edge of discomfort? How can I learn how far I can push myself without breaking? Do I just have to blow up a few times to know where the edge is?

Also, do you have any recommendations about focusing on RPE, which is rate of perceived exertion, versus power and pace? I wonder if I get too fixated to do. on the numbers. I believe this is my major barrier to performing the way I want to. Thanks so much and can't wait to see you race at Oceanside. And I want to also do a little follow-up here. Do you think that that kind of that threshold of where you're like, I'm blown up or like, I can't go beyond this? Do you feel like that has shifted as you've gotten fitter in your

throughout your athletic career? And are there some races where that barrier also shifts? Or is there this like hard and fast physiological line that is like, nope, that's it. And if you go over, you're in real trouble. I think as athletes we're like always trying to find that edge in training so that it's not so foreign in racing. And there is this line also between not just blowing up but maybe getting injured or pushing yourself to the point where you're training so hard you can't recover and come back and back up your training. So that is kind of a line we're always all looking for. But ultimately if you've paced it right, you get into a race and you can get into the zone and not feel like It's so unusual because you've done it in training before.

And yeah, I think the line is constantly shifting as you progress and get fitter and get more race sharp along the way. Yeah, I had, I guess, just anecdotally experience over the last couple years as I got a little bit more into Xtera and mountain biking, where I did have a power meter on my mountain bike, but I would just have the trail map pulled up or whatever. And some days, you know, we just get like the fourth time in a row that we had 10 by 5 minutes or whatever. and I just decided I wasn't going to do that on TT bike and I went it on the mountain bike instead and not having that power there and just going as hard as I could

I ended up going at 20 watts higher than I was going on the road just focusing on going hard. So that could be a thing that you could do is just like have the power meter running but just go out and go hard once every once in a while and see what happens.

Yeah. Chelsea, do you look at your numbers a lot? Are you very number driven when you train? I'm much more number driven now with my coach, Dan Plews. physiologist and so my training is super structured there's not a whole lot of like go out and see how you feel like smell the flowers or whatever so which I miss but um no like my training is really calculated and and that gives me an idea of kind of what those like physiological parameters are that I should be aiming for on race day but for me um like I come in with confidence like I get confidence from those

numbers in training, but when I'm competing, I kind of let go of that a little bit, and I allow myself to, like, seize the competitive opportunity, and being around really fast athletes takes me to another level, and sometimes I'll exceed even what I thought I could do in training. Like, I enjoy training, and I'm, like, pretty decent at training, but I really love the racing, and that's where I find out, like, what is possible for me. And do you think when that line moves, like, for a race, and you're like, oh, I can actually perform at a higher level of percentage of this. How much of it is I'm willing to endure more of that discomfort versus no, I'm just so overcome with the grit and excitement that that discomfort is just

quieter in my mind. Oh, that's a tough one. I think you get fitness even from super hard race efforts. Like I've done two Iron Man's now and I feel like coming out of the other side of both of those, I've gained a lot of fitness and kind of new levels in my training. because of those training blocks I did with those races. So certainly there's like a mental component of realizing that you're capable of more than you thought. But I think there's also a physiological benefit to like enduring those like long training blocks that we put ourselves through. And then also that like super tough effort on race day. Yeah.

Yeah, that's cool. It's something I've always curious about because I feel like as age groupers, we feel like this difference in what we're willing to endure. But as a professional where you're like in front of everyone's eyes every time, It's like, do you have this pressure to always be at the maximum level that you have to perform at every time? They're just like mentally and emotionally exhausting. Yeah, but we also train more than you, Nick. Wow. Shots fire.

I think we also have such, you know, I've gotten a couple of questions since Kona, like, do I feel so much pressure now that I, like, won this race? And the reality is that we all put so much pressure on ourselves. Like, sure, there is extrinsic pressure when we do well, and people, think that we should maybe perform a certain way every time we show up. But the reality is that we have really high expectations for ourselves. And I think that's where the main driver comes from. It's not from people watching us. Yeah.

Yeah, 100%. Well, those are all the official questions we have. So if anyone has a question they want to ask right now, just raise your hand. Someone raised their hand, but there's a phone in their hand filming us. So I don't think that counts. So I've heard obviously pros say, you know, we will grab on the rod or whatever. Do you guys actually cramped? So the question is, do the pros actually cramp as well?

Does that happen, or is that just for us mere mortals? Yeah. I think it's so individual. I personally have never cramped in a race. Have you, Chelsea? That has not been one of my issues so far. Knock on wood, yeah. I've cramped, but not full lockup, like, really close on the bike,

and then it ultimately went away. I actually have that thing where you, like, where you cramp in the swim and your calves like lock up on you. I think a lot of that comes down to nutrition and sodium and if it's hot out, there's so many factors. But if you're training well and training with the fuel that you're going to race with, should be able to. Pacing properly. Yeah, pacing properly.

Exactly. Yeah, that's great. We have time for more too. Don't be shy people. Come on. We just ran together. Yeah. Biggest tip for Oceanside is the question.

All of you have done it before. So what do you think? I would say just like save a little something for the second half of the bike. Because you can get real excited going out on the old highway and it looks beautiful and you're feeling awesome and everything. But like coming back into town, sometimes there can be a headwind and it is real nice to not be exploded for that last 45 minutes. My tip would be to use the excitement of the crowd around the pier to look forward to on some of the lonely out and backs because you go pretty far down the coast here. And it can feel pretty long on those sections, but you get to cross the pier four times and That's where I get soaking up all the energy of everyone who's cheering and ocean side

The reason we come back every year is because of the atmosphere and the culture of trathon here and That's really where you can feel it so even if you're lonely and suffering and it's a little quieter out here at the turnaround Look forward to that every every lap Sure, I think that this course is kind of surprisingly challenging, but it's a really special one so and enjoy it. So many of the courses that we go to are just like flat and you're staring down to your titty bars all day. But this one is like it's dynamic and there are hills and elements with the ocean swim and the bike of course and then some punchy spots on the run. So allow that to break it up for you and make it really interesting out there. Yeah, cool. All right. Maybe we have time for two more.

So anyone? Yeah, right here. Favorite recovery tool or supplement? Well, Paula's been crushing the one of those calf sleeves? You love those. Crushing the cat. Yeah, well, I'm not hearing that night like, wow. No, well, when we travel far in the van, we just got a set of the Norma Tech calf sleeves. And you can wear them when you're, when you're like passenger in a van or on the airplane. They're maybe not as good as the full boots, but they're a cool travel thing. And they kind of like the inflammation out of your legs. So, yeah, I've been liking those.

And anything else that I didn't bring up for you, sorry? No, that's a good answer, Nick. Thank you. Eric, do you have a favorite kind of thing? I'm totally drawn to blank. I know Eric's favorite thing is come home, don't get out of your bibs and start editing photos, which is not great advice.

Editing excitement. Always takes the edge off. Eric's really good at the protein shakes, actually. And he doesn't make fancy smoothies. He'll just mix, like, momentous or something with water, and that's a really fast way to get recovery in. He's pretty diligent about that. Wildly utilitarian with my recovery shakes.

Whatever it takes. Better to have it that way than not have it at all. Chelsea, do you have a thing? I'm all about the snacks. I love the feed is what I use, and I order all sorts of different products on there to try. Right now, I'm into the goo Energy Labs chocolate protein drink. And my hack is that I'll do the mix with some water, and then I'll put like a healthy splash of whipping cream in there.

Who's whipping cream. Why not? No, that's great. That's the Chelsea Sedaro official now, the mocktail. Okay, and we have one more. Did you have one? Someone here in the front? Yeah.

Who's winning the race? Me, probably. I'll win the race. We're all friends, so whoever wins will be happy for them. Absolutely. It's really unknown, the first race of the year. I feel like everyone feels like it's a bit of a test to see where their fitness is at, and it's certainly not going to dictate your entire season necessarily. So that takes some of the pressure off mentally, I think,

to know that this is just a really good season opener. The excitement is really fun, and we have a lot of respect for our competitors and our friends who are racing against and know what it takes to race at this level. So, yeah, it is funny. There's always surprises at this one. Totally, yeah.

Yeah, I think it last year. That was like, you know, I don't know if a lot of people thought Jackson would win and then he just really ran away with it at the end. Anything could happen. Absolutely no one would have guessed that. No, and that's why it's fun to watch this race. It's fun to be, I mean, triathlon's not known for being a spectator sport,

but there's no other sport that I prefer to watch. It's so fun to see, especially when you know the people, when you know the injuries and the drama and all the stuff. It's, you feel like you know each one of them watching your friend's race almost. Totally. Yeah. Cool.

Well, I think that's going to be it for the questions. I just want to say thank you again so much to On and communal coffee. Big cheer, round of applause for them. So, so cool. Look down at your shoes. Are those the shoes you came here with? If they're not, remember to get your shoes back at the end. Hannah, is that good?

Okay, great, great. Thank you so much again. On, thank you so much to World Champion Chelsea Sadaro. Thank you, Eric and Paul, obviously. And thank you so much to all of you. Whatever. But thank you so much to all of you guys for coming.

This is like crazy, surreal dream scenario for us to have you in person. It's something we talked about so much at races, but it's like actually getting it organized. That's been amazing. And I also also also, I want to, before a big applause, thank Nick for everything he does. Thank you.

I can't even list it all, but for this instance, the audio, the whole setup, everything he does with the podcast and just as a friend could not do it without you. Thank you, Nick. We're going to do the posters. We're still going to hand those out. Maria has Sharpies for signing them. There's food in the back. We're going to be hanging out.

There's hats right here that either Eric or Paula's mom. is going to be selling. And then I encourage everyone to hang out. Thank you so much, everybody, for coming. This has been a dream come true. We'll catch you all next week on the podcast.